A/N: A new story! It’s in its first stages right now, so reviews and constructive criticism are definitely welcome (and wanted!). Please let me know what you think. It’s coming along a little slowly right now, so I’ll try and get the next chapter up as quickly as I can. Thanks! Twizz

Change My Life

Chapter One

Lily knew she should have been exhausted, but she wasn’t. She just wanted to get there and her family was being so slow. She’d spent the entire night before trying to cram clothing into too-small suitcases, checking things off on her 2 page, 10 point font list, and reminiscing about the best summer of her life that she was now leaving behind with a hurried exit.

Having her Dad promoted and transferred to Columbus, OH from Pittsburgh, PA had severely cut into her summer. She’d stayed in her grandparent’s cigarette smoke filled house and endured a 12:30 am curfew so that she could keep her job and spend time with her friends. She’d been independent that summer, only having to answer to herself and getting to do the things she wanted. She went to work, she went to graduation parties, she went out to dinner with her friends, she went to church camp and to the beach and she enjoyed every minute of it. But the death of her Nana, her great-grandmother, had unexpectedly cut the fun short, causing her to miss her last day at the job she loved and the last big sha-bang with all her friends. And after three days with her mom’s side of the family and two hurried days at her new home, it was off to college.

No matter how terrified she became about the new life she would be entering today, her terror never outweighed her excitement. Her roommate was named Laura and Lily couldn’t wait to meet her. They’d e-mailed back and forth through the summer, and after a brief scare that Lily wasn’t going to be able to go, everything had worked out and they were still roommates. Lily wanted them to become good friends.

She already knew some people at the University: Jason, one of her good friends from church-camp that she’d known and had a crush on from about her freshman year until her mid-way through her senior year, was entering his sophomore year, along with Amanda, another friend from camp. And there were a few people she’d met on her visitation weekend the preceding May. But she was still nervous about meeting new people, trying to make new friends. Her friends from home were amazing, and Lily couldn’t imagine finding friends as good as them anywhere, even at a small Christian college in the middle of Indiana. If there was one thing that made Lily more nervous than anything, it was change. Even though this was a welcome change, Lily knew she’d have to force herself to accept it until she became comfortable with her surroundings.

It took three hours from Columbus to get to Anderson, IN, and the time crawled by. Someone had to use the restroom, someone was hungry, stop after stop after stop; Lily wanted to pull her hair out. Traveling with both her parents and her two younger sisters was maddening enough, without it seeming like they were doing everything in their power to keep her from her destination. She’d told Laura they’d be there an hour ago and they were still forty-five minutes away.

As soon as she met Laura, Lily could tell that they wouldn’t become great friends fast. Laura had one of her best friends from home living directly across the hall, and Lily knew that they just didn’t have much in common. Laura was also very reserved and unsociable; not at all what she’d seemed like through all her e-mails. Lily was a little disappointed, but not heart-broken. She kept her hopes up for making new friends in other ways. Hopefully she’d see someone she knew soon, since her parents were leaving right after they helped her get all her things into her room and put away, and she’d have no one to walk around with or talk to until orientation activities started.

Moving all her belonging into her room went much quicker than Lily had ever expected. The night before it had seemed like she owned everything any one person could possibly own, but compared to her roommate and other girls that lived on her hall, all her things fit well into her room. She liked the way it looked when everything was put away. Even though she wasn’t a very neat person, she’d always liked things when they were neat. She stood there, taking it in and trying to convince herself that this was really the place she would be living for the next eight months, because she didn’t quite grasp the concept yet. This whole thing seemed so foreign to her, like she was walking through a dream, or like she was still on a visitation day.

Laura had already left the room a few hours ago and now with her family gone, she had nowhere to go except to the orientation activities that were scheduled for freshman all weekend. She wasn’t very excited about it because she’d never liked being in a huge place with hundreds of people she didn’t know, but she’d get over it soon. Maybe she’d meet some people. She tried to psych herself up for it as she quickly changed her shirt and her shoes and then grabbed the orientation schedule she’d been given by her resident assistant off of the top of her neatly organized dresser. She was supposed to be in Reardon Auditorium, but she wasn’t quite sure where that was yet. Unfortunately, the building her dorm room was in wasn’t a regularly shaped building, so when Lily stepped out of her doorway, she didn’t really know where she was going. She was forced to randomly pick a stairway and go down it, though she ended up in a completely different location than she wanted to. She found her way around the building and bumped into a familiar face.

“Abby!” she said, so happy to have found someone she knew that she could share her nervousness with.

“Lily! Wow, I barely recognized you with your hair cut short!”

A few months earlier, Lily had cut off her waist-length hair to donate it. Her longest layer now just reached the tops of her shoulders.

“Headed over to Reardon Auditorium, too?” Lily smiled.

“Yup, my Mom and my Uncle just took off. Are you parents still here?”

“Nope, they left a little while ago. My sisters were here too and it was crazy. Did it take you long to get all your stuff moved in?”

“Not really, I didn’t have much. But some of it’s still not unpacked,” Abby laughed and they chatted until they reached the buzzing auditorium.

Orientation was nerve-wracking. Two days before she was supposed to move in, Lily’s enrollment had accidentally been cancelled. Her mom had worked her magic over the phone and gotten everything put back in order, but now it was causing problems. She wasn’t on anyone’s list for anything and kept having to explain the story. The people were very nice, but it was still making Lily anxious.

“Family Groups” were what they were put into on that first night. They were basically organized orientation groups of freshman, with a faculty member and a few upperclassmen as leaders. After talking to numerous people and finding out which group she was supposed to be in and where they were supposed to meet, she ended up in a classroom in Hartung, one of the main buildings where classes were held. Once all the group members were present, the leaders introduced themselves and the chairs were arranged in a lopsided circle. Games ensued; one in particular in which each person in the circle said their name and something about them that they liked and the next person around the circle clockwise had to repeat that person’s information and the information of each person ahead of them in order, and then provide their own information.

“My name is Amanda and I like to draw.”

“My name is Daniel and I like tennis.”

“My name is Amy and I like Elvis.”

“My name is Jenna and I like to hang out with friends.”

It was tricky, especially with so many people in the group. It was amusing the way some people messed up people’s names or switched around what some people said.

Lily felt like a nerd when the only thing she could think of to say was: “My name is Lily and I like to read.” It was true and she was an English major, but how much more nerdy could you get than that?